Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Geothermal Energy

Cool idea:

"The United States could generate as much electricity by 2050 as that
flowing today from all of the country’s nuclear power plants by
developing technologies that tap heat locked in deep layers of granite,
according to a new study commissioned by the Energy Department.

There are already dozens of power plants worldwide that have long
exploited hot spots of geothermal energy to drive steam turbines, but
they are restricted to a few areas.

The new report,
published online yesterday, focuses on a process that it said could
affordably harvest heat locked in deep layers of granite that exist
almost everywhere on earth. The technique, called enhanced geothermal,
involves drilling several holes — some two to three miles deep — into
granite that has been held at chicken-roasting temperatures, around 400
degrees or more, by insulating layers of rock above.

In the right geological conditions, pressurized water can be used to
widen natural mazelike arrays of cracks in the granite, creating a
vast, porous subterranean reservoir.

In a typical setup, water pumped down into the reservoir through one
hole absorbs heat from the rock and flows up another hole to a power
plant, giving up its heat to generate steam and electricity before it
is recirculated in the rock below.

There are successful plants harvesting heat from deep hot rock in
Australia, Europe and Japan, the report noted, adding that studies of
the technology largely stopped in the United States after a brief burst
of research during the oil crises of the 1970s.

Monday, January 22, 2007

Aston Martins Hold Their Appeal

Gorgeous car, huh?

"The consensus among enthusiasts is that Ford’s reign over Aston
Martin has been largely benevolent. Still, the question among
collectors is how a change of ownership may affect the value of older
Aston Martins.

Just as Fender Stratocasters and Telecasters made before the
company’s takeover by CBS are the only instruments that matter for
collectors, most of the collecting activity in Aston Martins is with
cars produced during the marque’s golden era of 1947 to 1972, when it
was owned by David Brown, a British industrialist.

The DB4 and DB5 of 1958-65 are generally considered the apex of the
David Brown era (he’s the DB in the model names) and are among the
loveliest front-engine grand touring cars ever produced. Built using
the complicated Italian superleggera method — draping hand-wrought
alloy body panels over a frame of tiny steel tubes — they were built to
blast safely across European motorways, autostradas, autobahns and
routes nationale, at speeds in excess of 100 miles an hour. And they
had to look good parked in front of places like Brenner’s Park-Hotel
and Spa in Baden-Baden, Germany, or the Gstaad Palace hotel in
Switzerland."